Why did the mysterious "Yang Naiwu Cabbage Case" in the late Qing Dynasty lead to the fall of hundreds of officials?

1On June 9, 873, Ge Pinlian, a short-time worker in Yuhang Tofu Workshop, Zhejiang Province, died of sudden illness. His family was livid when they found the body, and his nose and mouth were bleeding. He suspected poisoning and reported it immediately. Liu Xitong, the magistrate of Yuhang County, tried the case.

This is an ordinary murder case. The case itself is not deeply tortuous. As long as you investigate carefully, you can close the case. No one expected that under the operation of Liu Xitong, it became the first of the four major unjust cases in the late Qing Dynasty, which caused an uproar in the political environment at that time. After the settlement of the case, Cixi issued an imperial edict to dismiss, exile or investigate the governor of Zhejiang and the magistrate of Yuhang 130 people.

What is the difference between this case and the whole judicial system in Zhejiang? In fact, the cause behind it stems from the personal grievances of a magistrate and a juren.

1 Yang Naiwu, a scholar in Yuhang, has a well-off family and loves being attacked. On weekdays, he went to court for others, causing a lot of trouble to Liu Xitong, the magistrate of a county. In September 1873, he was the only successful bidder in Yuhang County. When Ge Pinlian was killed, Yang Naiwu was still immersed in the joy of winning the Olympic bid.

Yang Naiwu's house is a two-story building. He lives on the first floor with his sister and wife. Ge Pinlian and his wife Bi Xiugu rent on the second floor. Bi Xiugu is handsome and likes to wear white clothes and green pants. People nicknamed her? Chinese cabbage? Living under the same roof, the two families are inevitably familiar with each other. Yang Naiwu and Chinese cabbage used to be very close and often taught her to read and write. As a result, the neighbors spread gossip? Sheep (Yang) eat cabbage? Gossip spread like wildfire, and Yang Naiwu was very unhappy after hearing it. He plans to raise the rent as soon as the lease arrives, forcing Ge Pinlian to leave. At this time, something happened to Ge Pinlian.

In those days, Yang Naiwu went to Yuyao's mother-in-law's house to handle affairs. 10 On the ninth day of June, Ge Pinlian couldn't get up early in the morning. At first he thought it was filariasis, which is what we often call filariasis. After taking the medicine, the condition worsened. Chinese cabbage asked the doctor to prescribe medicine, but it didn't work. In the afternoon, it seems to be three or five o'clock. Ge Pinlian was hacked and died of sudden illness, and his family quickly reported the case to the official.

Liu Xitong, a county magistrate in Yuhang, who is nearly seventy years old, came to the autopsy site with his friend Shen Xiang and watched the scene together. When he saw that the deceased was Ge Pinlian, he smiled and talked about the gossip story of Yang Naiwu and Chinese cabbage. After his vivid jokes, it is simply a copy of Wu Dalang and Pan Jinlian. Liu Xitong has been disgusted with Yang Naiwu. Now the opportunity has come, and the buried Shen Xiang is also a fool.

If Liu Xitong got the treasure, he immediately took the cabbage back to the yamen for interrogation and asked while playing. Did you murder Ge Pinlian with the adulterer Yang Naiwu? This is where the verdict is made, and it is a naked confession. Chinese cabbage can't stand the torture of barbed wire stabbing chest and molten tin, and is forced to confess that arsenic was given to her by Yang Naiwu on the fifth day of October, and poisoned her on the ninth day of October.

He was arrested in the county government soon, and Yang denied that he was not in Yuhang on the fifth day of October, so how could he commit the crime? Many witnesses confirmed that Yang Naiwu was right when he arrived.

Yang Naiwu is a new juren. According to the law, he will not kneel and will not be punished. Just as our NPC deputies can't be arrested now, they must be exempted from the representative qualification first. Liu Xitong wrote to the magistrate in Hangzhou, demanding that Yang be disqualified as a juren. As soon as the official document came out, Liu Xitong punished Yang Naiwu with his hind feet, but Yang Naiwu firmly denied it.

120, Liu Xitong sent Yang Naiwu, Chinese cabbage and related files to the Hangzhou magistrate's office, but it happened that the testimony of witness Yang Naiwu was withheld.

Soon, the imperial court issued Zhu Pi, canceling his status as a Yang Naiwu juren, and Chen Lu, the magistrate of Hangzhou, was relieved. He was tortured and served, and Yang Naiwu was beaten to pieces and forced to admit having an affair with Chinese cabbage. Arsenic was sold to him by Qian Baosheng, the owner of Yirentang drugstore.

Ai Rentang is real, and so is Boss Qian, but his name is Qian Tan instead of Bao Sheng. It turned out that Yang Naiwu remembered the name of the store and the boss's surname, but he didn't know the name, so he had to be tortured to extract a confession.